It combines the best things about South Park, Earthbound and Conker's Bad Fur Day

It was supposed to be released back in 2013 under the now defunct publisher THQ and, for a brief period, the game’s future actually looked like it might be in jeopardy. Luckily the rights to the game were purchased by Ubisoft and The Stick of Truth was finally given a solid Dec. 10, 2013 release date. Unfortunately it was delayed yet again and was finally set to be released on March 4, 2014.

Now, South Park: The Stick of Truth is finally out and the big question surrounding its release, especially because it really is the first promising looking South Park Game, is if the game is actually any good?

Yes, The Stick of Truth was well worth the lengthy wait and it offers a significantly better and more authentic South Park experience than South Park 64’surine-soaked snowballs and never ending onslaught of angry turkeys.

The first thing that stands out about The Stick of Truth are its visuals. The game actually looks exactly like an episode of South Park, complete with the awkward cardboard cutout-style animation the show is famous for. If you showed The Stick of Truth to a long-time South Park fan who’s unaware of the game’s existence, they’d probably just assume it’s a new episode of South Park.

You begin the game as the new kid in everyone’s favourite quiet little mountain town and create your own custom character, choosing to play as one of the title’s four character classes: either Fighter, Mage, Thief or Jew (yes, this really is a character class). Although customization options are limited at first, they expand as you pick up items hidden around South Park, gain experience points and level your character up. The beginning of the game’s story focuses on a battle between Cartman’s human faction and Stan and Kyle’s elves, all put together in the delightful way you’d expect from South Park.

Cartman with a ketchup packet bleeding from his mouth.

Discovering the game’s hilarious story, that pokes fun at both video games and society, is where I got the most enjoyment out of The Stick of Truth, so I’m keeping my plot summary to a minimum in this review. Let’s just say it involves aliens, green goo, Nazi zombies and abortion clinics. While it doesn’t use current events as fodder for jokes like more recent seasons of South Park have, it’s still hilariously offensive and actually reminds me of some of the shows’ earlier episodes.

South Park’s creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, played a large role in The Stick of Truth’s development, particularly when it came to story, and it really shows. The game looks and feels authentically South Park and long time fans of the show will find a lot to love about the game. Obscure characters like the Okama Sphere, ManBearPig and even Jesus all make an appearance.

While The Stick of Truth’s main story is entertaining and appropriately bizarre, I had more fun completing the game’s quirky side quests. One involved helping out City Wok’s owner by destroying a nearby Mongolian stronghold and it was awesome. It’s also fun to just explore the city, especially if you’ve been a fan of the show for years. While wandering around South Park, I had quite a few deja vu “I remember this episode!” moments.

The Stick of Truth’s Facebook-like menu screen is filled with hidden hilarity.

Still certain jokes feel a little dated like your character’s “Dragon Fart” ability, an obvious dig at Skyrim’s “Dragon Shout” power. It’s still funny, but not as amusing as it would have been if the game was released back in 2013 when it was initially supposed to be.

The Stick of Truth’s classic JRPG turn-based combat system is simple but also surprisingly has a lot of depth to it, but this should be expected since the game was created by the same studio behind Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II.

At first, the combat system is a little difficult to pick up and might initially seem too unforgiving. One simple mistake can cost you to die at the hand of one the game’s bizarre enemies, like a zombie Nazi rat for example. Give it time though because after about an hour or two of play, The Stick of Truth’s combat system starts to make sense. Prepare to use a ton of items during battle. Stock up on Tweak’s coffee (it gives you two chances to attack in one turn), revives (the animation involves waving a taco over a fallen player’s head) and large health potions (appropriately a large bag of cheesy poofs in the game).

South Park: The Stick of Truth’s combat system is deceptively deep.

To make the combat a little more exciting, Obsidian has shaken up the traditional JRPG combat system by including timed button presses for attacks, blocking and even special abilities. Butters’ Professor Chaos ability is by far my favourite special attack in the game, not because it’s powerful, but because it’s hilarious and Butters is awesome.

The combat system does have a few issues though. You have no control over your party members armour, clothes or weapons. You still command them in battle, but it would be nice if I could customize Cartman, “Princess” Kenny or Butters’ appearance. Also, at times you’ll be fighting up to four enemies at the same time, but only be controlling two characters of your own. Since The Stick of Truth is obviously going for an old school turn-based feel, it would have been great to have the ability to control four players at once in battle.

I also enjoyed the fact that battles aren’t random and you actually see enemies before engaging in combat. Sometimes you can find a way to avoid fighting all together, usually through one of the game’s adventure genre-like puzzles. While most of these puzzles are easy to solve, a few stumped me for a brief period of time because it’s not always clear what you need to do . Also, the mechanics of the whole farting system are a little frustrating and I had to repeatedly listen to Randy Marsh’s initial squeaky stinker explanation until I finally managed to figure it out.

While I’ve never completed Earthbound, I have played the game and during my time with Stick of Truth, I couldn’t help but draw a connection between the two titles. Both games take place in a modern setting and involve players using everyday items in combat.

Even the way you navigate the game’s paper cutout world, reminded me of the cult classic. The plots’ initial focus on two groups of kids playing an elaborate childhood game, but then bigger things out of the children’s control start to happen, also really reminded me of Earthbound. After making this correlation in my mind, I did a little bit of Googling and apparently Stone and Parker actually were inspired by Earthbound when it came to The Stick of Truth.

My biggest criticism of the game is I don’t think it’s going to reach a very wide audience. Sure some South Park fans probably also enjoy classic JRPG-style games, but a lot probably don’t, so the game’s plodding combat style will probably turn a lot of gamers off the Stick of Truth.

This particular scene leads into one of The Stick of Truth’s more bizarre moments.

And while the game is probably the best traditional RPG I’ve played in years, if you’re a JRPG fan and not interesting at all in South Park, The Stick of Truth definitely isn’t the game for you. Of course some people are both big South Park fans and love classic turn-based role-playing games, but I can’t help but wonder how large an audience the Stick of Truth will actually find.

South Park: The Stick of Truth combines the best things about Earthbound, the hilarious Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64 and South Park, all into one impressive role-playing game.

We’ve had to wait 17 years for a South Park game to take advantage of everything the licence has to offer, but it’s finally here.

South Park: The Stick of Truth released on March 4, 2014 and is available on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. For this review I played the PC version of the game.